


London

by greenapricot



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post S4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot/pseuds/greenapricot
Summary: Morse blinks and rubs his hand over his face. She must be a mirage, a hallucination induced by too much whisky and not enough sleep.





	London

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Jack, who graciously gave this a once over even though they aren't in the fandom.

The doorbell is chiming. Morse takes another sip of whisky and wills the incessant _ding dong, ding dong_ to stop. It’s someone looking for the previous tenant or pressed the wrong button. Hasn’t been anything else since he moved in. But the chime comes again. Then again. And again. Awfully insistent for someone who doesn't even know where the person they're trying to contact lives. Morse downs the last of his drink and heads for the door and the four flights down to the street. 

He almost misses the step above the third floor landing, catching himself against the dingy wall as he stumbles. Possibly he's had more whisky than necessary. Possibly last night was the same, and the night before that. The new job is fine. His new governor is fine; a man of few words but straightforward and rather more receptive to Morse’s theories than he’d expected. It's not been pleasant exactly, calling the job pleasant when it involves so many murders doesn’t feel right, but it's not been unpleasant.

Coming to London was the right decision, a clean break. There was nothing left for him in Oxford. Yet, he dreams of spires and golden stone, the smell of Thursday’s pipe tobacco, and the rumble of the Jag’s engine. He was in Oxford for the better part of four years, he'd got used to it is all, and just because he was used to it is no reason to have stayed. Or to go back. He’ll get used to London too. Get used to a tall ginger pathologist, all the PCs calling him Sarge, and the grey of the streets.

Morse pulls the street door open with a bit more force than necessary—a barbed comment about checking people’s addresses more thoroughly on the tip of his tongue—but the person on the doorstep isn't a stranger. Morse blinks and rubs his hand over his face. She must be a mirage, a hallucination induced by too much whisky and not enough sleep.

“Miss Thursday,” he says. 

“Hello,” she says. 

“Hello,” he replies. “How did you—?” Morse doesn't know which question to ask first. How did you find me? How did you get here? How did it go at the hospital? How are you? But he’s stymied by the sight of her stood on the pavement in the dim yellow light of the street lamp, like a spectre from one of his dreams.

“You said London,” she says with a smirk. “It's remarkable the sort of information you can get from people when they think you're someone's secretary.” And then she gives him a smile, the same smile he's seen countless mornings stood on the Thursdays' doorstep, a welcome and a challenge. 

“Oh,” is all he can manage. Better than _marry me_ , but not by a lot. It's late and she's still standing in the street. “Ah, I suppose you’d like to come in? Or we could go out,” he says, tugging at his earlobe. He’s suddenly not entirely sure he wants her to see his flat.

“I’d rather come in,” she says, looking a bit unsure. “If that’s all right?”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” he says and steps out of the way to let her through the door. “Top floor.”

Joan—he can call her Joan in his head where no one can hear, where the familiarity isn’t overstepping any lines—starts up the stairs in front of him, saving him the trouble of having to come up with anything else to say, at least until they make it to his flat. 

“Drink?” Morse offers as soon as he’s through the door. He's already pouring one for himself before he realises he hasn't got another clean glass. He scrambles to the tiny kitchen, hastily washes one of the glasses piled by the sink, then returns and pours. He can feel Joan’s eyes on him the whole time. 

“Thank you,” she says stepping toward him to take the glass. She takes a sip, grimaces, and then takes another, holding the glass to her chest as she turns to look at the room, taking it all in.

It's one in a long line of grotty flats he's inhabited but she's only seen the most recent. The light from the only lamp that’s lit is dim, not bright enough to chase the shadows from the corners. It makes the flat appear cosy, the yellow light obscuring the shabbiness made obvious by the harsh light of day. 

Morse watches Joan as she takes in the newspapers overflowing the bin, the books stacked in piles on the floor, the dirty dishes that have collected by the sink, the clothes draped over the back of the chair, the unmade bed, and his records—the one thing in the flat that's tidy—on the shelf above the small table where the record player sits. He watches her as she looks at the detritus of his life, as if she's looking for clues. Maybe she is. 

She looks much more herself than last time he saw her, the last two times he saw her. He tries not to think about her looking so small and alone in the hospital bed he walked away from.

“They called you,” she says, half turned away from him, squinting at the few books that made it onto the shelf next to the records. It's not a question but he wouldn't know how to answer even if it was. Yes should be the obvious choice. Yes, they called him, and yes he went to see her, and yes he left for London before she woke up. 

“It wasn't his,” she says and Morse knows he should have some response to that as well but mostly he's grateful to her for carrying on with the conversation without him. “I was— before,” she gestures downward. “That's why I left— I thought—” She shakes her head. “It doesn't matter now.” She shakes her head again and takes a large sip of whisky, leaning against the wall next to the shelf.

Morse wants to say that it does matter; it's the call, not her former situation, which matters to him. The hospital called him, which means she gave them his number, which means she wanted him to be called if someone was called. He tries not to think about that either. But now she's in his flat. She came to find him.

“You left too. After all that. Mum says you didn't tell Dad.” It's an accusation—though her tone is far from harsh—and it's true, no point in trying to defend himself. Morse makes himself meet her gaze as she turns toward him and he sees unexpected understanding there. He still can't find the words to explain himself but maybe that's not necessary. Maybe if he holds her gaze for long enough she'll see everything that's been churning through his mind since she left without him having to come out and say any of it.

“So,” she continues. “I decided turnabout was fair play.” And then she smiles: bright, and lovely, and completely alien in his dreary flat. “I should have listened to you. So maybe you'll listen to me.”

Morse takes a sip of his whisky, playing for time. He wants to ask about Thursday now, if he's all right without him. But of course Thursday is all right, and Joan won't know that anyway. He wouldn’t tell his daughter if he wasn’t.

“Call him,” she says, as if she can hear his thoughts. “He misses you. He won't say it himself but he does.”

“Is that why you're here? For him?” It comes out more bitter than he intends. He misses Thursday too, but it's nothing to how he feels about Joan. As if he has a right to miss something he never had. 

“No. Yes. I—” Her gaze is steady though her voice is not.

“Miss Thursday,” he says, taking a step closer to her. She puts her glass down on the shelf and closes the distance between them.

“You could call me Joan, you know,” she says bringing her hand to his cheek in an echo of that early Oxford morning on which he didn't have the words to convince her to stay. “I think we know each other well enough for that by now.” He still doesn't have the words, for any of it, but he turns his head this time and kisses her palm.

“Joan,” he says, lips moving against her skin and she rubs her thumb along his cheekbone, caressing his cheek, then across his lips. He kisses her thumb once. Twice. And she presses it against his lower lip, rubs back and forth gently. Her face is half in shadow and that makes her somehow more beautiful, a metaphor for how he's always seen her; never quite able to take all of her in at once despite the many opportunities presented.

“We never quite got it together, did we?” she says. He shakes his head, leaning into her touch and puts his glass down on the table next to him. “I kept waiting for you,” she continues. “To make the first move, to say something. But you weren't ever going to were you?”

Morse shakes his head again and she runs her hand down the side of his face, along his neck, fingers nudging under the open collar of his shirt and across his chest to rest over his heart. He tries, and fails, not to lean into the warmth of her hand. 

“I think you care for me a whole lot more than a bagman ought to care for his boss’ daughter.”

“Former boss,” Morse says, his voice sounding unsteady to his own ears. He places his hand over hers and twines their fingers together. He may fall into the pool of her eyes and be lost forever. 

“Former,” she says and stretches up on her toes to kiss him.

The first touch of her lips on his isn’t like a lightning bolt or fireworks or any of the things to which long awaited kisses are so often compared. It’s gentle, comforting, and right. Right like coming home. Right like this is where they should have been all along but for the circuitous route they've taken. Right like there's a part of her that resonates with a corresponding part of him and now, the dissonance finally worked out, they are harmonising. 

Morse is pressing her back against the wall before he’s quite realised he’s moved. His brain is no longer leading, all the lingering reasons why not dashed against her proximity, her hands on his back, in his hair, the warmth of her pressed against him. He stumbles in his haste to stay as close to her as possible, falling against her and the shelf. There is a clunk; the sound of her glass toppling to the floor. She laughs, her face pressed into his neck and then kisses him there and along his collarbone.

“Joan,” he says, awed and breathless.

“Morse,” she breathes and pulls him back in.

____


End file.
